Seventeen
by Yotoberry
Summary: The rise of a King and the fall of a Queen.
1. The Fall

He had just turned seventeen, almost two years without a word from the boy who'd turned his world upside down, shook it a bit and set it back again. Almost two years without the only person he ever felt like he could understand, who understood him. His footsteps dragged across the smooth laminate of his bedroom, toes scratching at knots in the wood. He never came. The fucker never came. Every week he waited at Hachiko, eyes fixed towards the underpass, every month he would wait in there too, hoping for a glimpse. Hanekoma had gone too; WildKat seemed to have deserted itself the week after the game finished, boarded up windows signalling that nothing had ever been in its place before.

Neku let himself crumple to the floor, head lolling against his bed. His hands sought for the feather he always wore about his neck, Joshua's last message to him. Fingers brushed at the soft tendrils as a breathy name left his mouth "Joshua…" Neku's grasp on sanity was failing and he knew it, his friends from the game long alienated, college long expelled from. The only thing that had him holding on now was the thought of Joshua, a hope he was finally accepting to be false. The feather, which had glowed brightly at first, had dimmed now so that Neku had to cup his hands tight around the delicate pendant to see anything at all. 'He isn't coming back. Not to see you, at least.'

Anger flushed through him now, the words finally sinking in through his mind. He had waited so long, so so long for the slightest glimpse, the faintest giggle and it never goddamn came. Rising up, the ginger boy felt his fists clenching, pulling back, colliding. The thin plasterboard of his walls buckled under the rage and gave way beneath his fist, cracking like a whip. Neku laughed, cackled at this. His voice cracking in his throat as tears slid down his cheeks. This was it, his last shred of normalcy, humanity crumbling like his bedroom wall. The window flung open, city air and bright lights filling his room, seventeen floors above the cacophony of his city. Neku Sakuraba stepped up to the sill, clenched his pendant… and flew.


	2. The Drink

His breath stinks, he's ambling round the Scramble. Isn't entirely sure how he got here, how long he's even been in the UG, vaguely aware of arriving one day but everything between then and now all a blur. The boy's a complete mess and he knows it, rather happy with how the whole situations turning out.

He ponders between gulps out of a brown bag, that it maybe wasn't always like this. Like there used to be someone holding him together, stopping him going over the edge and oh God he's gone over now hasn't he. No stopping him, a perfect free fall, utterly resplendent as he crashes and burns and doesn't even really know who he is anymore. His mind swims with ripped out memories of a past month and smirking boys and he's not far off now is he, feet dragging him in a direction which probably leads to the underpass, could very well lead to the underbelly of a truck though.

Neku giggles as he stumbles down the Rubicon, yelling forward to the air and everyone "Jesh… Jeshewar I'm dead now!" He cackles as he approaches the entrance as if he just told the worlds' funniest joke. Shibuya almost seems to know he needs protecting now and permits him entry with only the softest noise of protest.

Joshua had expected to see Neku at some point, had naturally been aware of his death. What he'd expect to see was Neku bursting through the walls, the whole city razed in his wake, ready to destroy the one who had let him fall so hard. What Joshua did not expect to see was his former proxy, sprawled out by the coffee table, vodka drip, drip, dripping onto the flooring and tears flooding onto his collar, pulled even higher than it had been two years ago.

For a few moments he hesitates there, in the doorway of his throne room ready to turn back and la la la he's not listening because there is no way, no way in hell that he's willing to sit there and admit that he's the reason Neku's here, not alive in any sense of the word. He had already started his retreat when he heard it, Neku's Music, notes dissonant and tinny, rage and sorrow and power, gosh so much power and the melody so pure underneath it all, so pure like the soul he first sought out for his game. He can't turn back now, it's pulling him in, dragging him under and he knows all those off keys, all those strangled notes are him and he's been running for too long from this. Joshua stepped forward, footsteps ghosting over the glass floor until he's closed enough to place a hand on the sobbing boys shoulders.

"Welcome home, Neku Sakuraba. It took you long enough."


End file.
